[TheInquirer] France falls under Internet censorship

THE FRENCH PARLIAMENT has buckled under pressure and approved the Sarkozy government's authoritarian plans to censor the Internet.

The government opposed all objections to its plans to filter Internet sites, which have been controversial throughout French society. Today La Quadrature du Net, a French openness group, said that the action would give the government total control over its citizens' access to the Internet. It added that Nicholas Sarkozy was using excuses to clear a path for his rules, which ultimately would come at the expense of liberty.

Jérémie Zimmermann, a spokesperson for La Quadrature du Net, said that any censorship should have been trialled before being approved, explaining, "The refusal to enact Net filtering as an experimental measure is a proof of the ill-intended objective of the government. Making Net filtering a temporary measure would have shown that it is uneffective to fight child pornography."